Toccacelo back, Graves out

1 January 1901

Enrico Toccacelo has returned to the World Series by Renault, after Tor Graves decided to abandon his ambition to join the series even before the first race has kicked off.

The Italian, who won the first World Series race at Zolder last season before cutting short his season to join Minardi as test driver in the second half of the year, has signed a deal to replace lacklustre Briton Graves at Eurointernational just over a week before the 2006 campaign gets underway in Belgium.

With Graves apparently turning his back on the series, team boss Antonio Ferrari wasted little time in contacting Toccacelo, who has kept his hand in with appearances for Team Italy in the winter's A1 Grand Prix series. According to sources, the contract is, as yet, only for the opening three races of the season - Zolder, Monaco and Istanbul - but could be extended beyond that if both parties are satisfied.

Although he has been out of a World Series car since last season, having not participated in any winter or pre-season testing, Toccacelo expects to be able to re-adapt during the two hours of running that precede the opening round at Zolder next week, even though the Dallara-built cars have been revised technically since 2005.